So you wake up one morning one week, one year, and realize you’re not 25 anymore, or 35, or for that matter 45. How the hell did that happen? You still feel pretty good, but a quick inventory reveals if you were a 60s car instead of a guy born in the 60s, a trip to the Monster Garage for some new parts would be in order. Not quite so simple, this “elite fitness” for the 40+ guy who wants to still be hard as nails, 6 pack and all.

You young guys (and girls) have no excuses. Testosterone, or whatever, flowing freely. No broken down parts. Young, single and ready to mingle. You have no excuses, so stop making them and go train. But what about us old guys who actually do have excuses—and good ones; might even call them reasons—to complain. Old shoulders that will never be the same. Old backs with crushed L2 vertebrae. Testosterone that just doesn’t pump like it used to. Not to mention jobs, wives, kids and so forth. What’s an old guy who’s nowhere near ready to give up to do? Enter the Old Man Black Box.


What is it?

What is the Old Man Black Box? OMBB is just my take on how to stay in the game. OMBB is about stealth. OMBB is about working around, through and with whatever you have to get where you want to be.

OMBB is not a program like the CrossFit WOD or the even the ME Black Box, although it owes something to both. It’s a way to approach your program. It’s a way to approach any program you see laid out anywhere and make it work for you.

I’ll be using myself as the example – because I know my own limitations only too well – but I think you’ll get the point.


Time

First, you have to train. All the planning, “open source” models and black boxes in the world won’t burn an ounce of fat, or put on a pound of muscle, unless you Nike, “just do it”. So the first step is where and when. Maybe not as simple as it looks. The garage gym is the CF paradigm. I have a gym in the basement, KBs, rings, etc…but I only use it about 2x a week, usually weekends. I leave early and I’m pretty beat when I get home. I used to like morning workouts but I need a lot of warm up to workout a.m. now. I find lunch, naturally warmed up but not tired, best for me now. Which means I’m with the “chrome and fern” crowd. So what? I set up in the back corner in the ALWAYS empty power rack. I have a pullup bar with all the headroom I don’t have at home, boxes to jump on and med balls. Where you train will influence what you can do. Plan ahead and it works just fine. I know guys with kids who also find working out at home tough even when they do have the time. Really think about what’s going to make your workouts easiest to get in, even if they’re not going to be perfect, and go with it. If you have to go to Ballys just use an alias.


Goals

There are lots of definitions of fitness, lots of paradigms to aspire to. What you have to do is figure out what your’s is now. For me, at 46, it’s leanness and power. Fat gets harder and harder to strip as you get older. It’s a fact. I will never again gain weight to achieve some other goal. This skews my black box toward metcon work. I deadlifted 405 last year, but I gave up way too much in the bargain. I had fun because some guys I like to train with were doing the same thing, but it wasn’t the right thing for me. You’re less resilient at 45 then 25, so be a little more selfish. I also want to maintain my speed and power. I’m including more big kips, plyo pushups, jumps and throws. I want to look like that guy in the “growing old is not for sissies” poster.

This may mean that you don’t follow any program not designed for you. If you want to, and can, follow the WOD, great, but realize it’s just one example of how CF can be done. Play around with it so it fits your goals exactly. Maybe the 3,3,2,2,2,1,1 workouts become 5,5,3,3,3 or even 5,5,5 if you’re back doesn’t like 1RM anymore. Maybe 21,15,9 becomes 30,20,10 with less weight – whatever – the point is understand why you’re working out that day.


Injuries

25 years of martial arts, mostly full contact, motorcycles, tennis, rock climbing, badly designed machines….time…certain stuff just doesn’t fly anymore. Overhead lifting is out. Suffice to say before that decision was made the full panoply of options was tried: joint mobility, low volume, high volume, bands, kettlebells, dumbbells, PT, ART etc…it’s broke, and only a knife MIGHT fix it, and that’s not happening. And you know what, who cares, because there’s always more then one way to skin a cat. I can do ball thrusters and wall ball, I think, because the elbows are in. I can do pushups and I can do dips, same reason. Running always winds up in bad shin splints, again, trust that I’ve tried everything and some stuff you never heard of. But I can jump. I had open-heart surgery when I was 17. Last year my Doc told me my heart looks amazing but I should stay away from 1 RM stuff to be safe. No problem.

My point is not to imply that you just give up on anything that gives you a problem, just the opposite, never give up. Don’t get bogged down in what you can’t do. I can’t do the girls that include BB clean and jerk. So if Fran comes up maybe I do 100 squat clean wall ball shots. Not the same, but close enough for rock and roll, and exactly what I need that day. If the WOD calls for a 400m run do 90seconds of jump rope. Your time won’t be directly comparable but you’ll be in one piece and getting fitter. If it’s ME day add a vest, or do a harder variation of something, like clapping or l-sit pull-ups with weight. Pick a couple WODs you can do as Rxed and use them as your benchmarks.


Recovery and Intensity

To me the statement, “There is no such thing as over training, only under recovery” is deceptive. In the case of most non-professional athletes, who work, have kids etc…recovery is finite, I can’t sleep more, rest more or work less, therefore any amount of training that exceeds your ability to recover is over training. Recovery also slows with age. Therefore, I moderate intensity. I rarely go 100%. I don’t meet pukie. That said, I certainly do get doubled over sucking wind and need to sit down at the end of a workout for a few minutes, before I feel “right” again. This works for me. Experiment.


Dealing With Change

This may be the single biggest factor in the maintenance of high level fitness throughout adulthood. I have NEVER not trained. I have trained at 5:30 a.m., lunch, after work, 9:00 p.m., M/W/F, S/SU/T/TH, fewer long workouts, more short ones - in short - wherever and whenever I had to. This is obviously related to the time issue above, but is also related to recovery, intensity, and importantly, family and friends. It’s related to life. My wife “gets” that planning the weekend, even one that, beyond the normal stuff, includes baby-sitting my niece and nephew and a trip to the in-laws, also includes 2 workouts. Conversations start out like, “I figure you can workout Saturday morning then we’ll…” I workout a total of about 4 hours a week. If I can’t have that, then my life’s messed up. Always know where and when you’re working out. Get the key players in your life to understand why it’s important to you and buy into it.


Diet

No way am I going there in this magazine. I’ll just say, “What Robb said.”


Putting it All Together

So how does the Old Man Black Box work? There are as many variables as there are people, so the best I can do is show how it works for me and hope there’s enough there so you get something out of it.

Time/Change – With my current job, during the week means at the gym. This means no KBs, no rings and no one else doing anything vaguely resembling a workout. It also means a great pull-up bar with unlimited headroom. Weekends, and maybe one night during the week I’m at home with all the toys, but no kipping or jumping lest my head go through the ceiling. So home workouts always include KBs, L-sit and ring pull-ups, ring dips and heavy ball stuff if it’s nice out. The gym always includes kipping and jumping. Weekends during the summer at the beach will be a 24kg KB, hanging single point pull-up bar and 20lb ball I’ll leave down there.

Injuries/Intensity/Recovery – No overhead lifts, no running and no 1 RM. Everyone and his brother has weighed in on how I can fix these issues. I’m satisfied to fix them by not doing them. End of discussion. Most workouts are hard, but not 100%. When it all comes together, a benchmark workout gets the full treatment.

Goals – Leanness and power. I want to stay at or below 10%, or full 6 pack if you will, for, well, forever. If my DL goes from 405 to 365 I could care less. If I can do 20 “Santa Cruz” swings with a 32kg KB my back’s good to go and my crushed L2 doesn’t bother me. I don’t know how I crushed that thing. I can only thing of like 467 times it might have happened.



Conclusion

In the final analysis, the Old Man Black Box is a just template to plug templates into. It’s certainly not just for the “old”. The “art” is that it includes some factors that take a long time to fully realize and maybe even longer to integrate. Hopefully this article can serve as a shortcut to getting to wherever you’re trying to go.


Here’s what a couple weeks of workouts might look like for me:

May 1

Test - 31 kipping pullups (PR)


May 2

120 L-sit pullups (alternated rings and bar every 5 reps)
100 24kg KB swings


May 3

10x
10 dips
10 pull-ups

13:42


May 4

Jumping/lower body explosiveness, however you want to say it, is my clear weakness. So in the spirit of work your weakness:

100 plyo jumps 18" box
75 tuck jumps
50 broad jumps (4')
25 lunge jumps (switching feet each jump mid-air)

13:32


May 6

50 ring dips
50 L sit pull-ups
50 24kg KB swings
50 evil wheel (from knees)
50 tuck jumps
50 ring pull-ups
50 double-unders

34:27


May 7

25 sets of 3 wall ball shots
15' target/20lb ball

At 15’ the idea was each shot to be a max explosion.


May 8

25 sets alternating:
5 kipping pull-ups (switched grips each set)
5 20" plyo jumps

17:37


May 9

CF PHILLY

First was mandatory stupid human tricks before the clients arrived. I did a couple sets of 10 clapping pull-ups and a set or two of pull-ups switching grips at the top.
Group Workout was:

3 rounds (1 minute between rounds):
30 sec KB swings
30 sec 4' broad jump
30 sec pushups

4 rounds (2 min? between rounds):

30 sec jumping pull-ups on ropes
30 sec thrusters w. appropriate weight ball
.21 mile run

Rounds were 2:30, 2:31, 2:34, 2:28

3x30 sec L-sit holds


May 11

"High Cost of Admission"

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1:
clapping pullups
clapping pushups
24" plyo jumps

13:26

All sets unbroken. Is it bad if you can actually feel your lats getting sore on the walk back to work from the gym? My elbows were sore for a week.


May 13

workout 1 - 10:00 a.m.

10 rounds:
10 wall ball w/ 20lb ball
100 jump rope

10:24

workout 2 - 2:00 p.m.

50 l-sit chins
50 ring dips
50 kneeling ab wheel
w/ 15lb vest

15:27


May 14

10 round:
20 ball slams (20lb d-ball)
10 24kg KB swings

12:26


May 15

Angie Sort of:
100 pullups + 10lbs (all kip)
100 pushups off 18" bench
100 18" box jumps
100 decline sit ups (45ish*)

21:32